November 3-4, 2024

Niagara

"One million bathtubs every minute."

they will say with appropriate awe

(though one million bathtubs is no less unfathomable

than one-hundred-sixty-eight-thousand cubic meters)

but how can a thing so majestic

a thing so grand and awe inspiring

be compared to so mundane a thing

as the enclosure where we bathe

how can we reduce such magnificence

to the taken-for-granted thing that stands

in the corners of our bathrooms

it's as gross an act to do that

as to see a Salmon fighting upstream

and say "Aha, I will have it on my hook."

to snare that beast of mind and muscle

that leaping dams and rushing rapids

owns more than we would give

as horrid as taking Niagara's thunder

folding it into the tiny envelope

with humble whisper of swirling drain

and labelling it as 'like-and-like'

such grandeur reduced reduces us

we are made smaller by the smalling

of such things as should simply be

reminders of our true smallness

to what will fit safe inside our pocket

where they can no longer change us